Mayor Taylor, Vice-Mayor Combs, Council members Carlton, Nash, Mueller, and Staff, The strength of our city lies in its concerted effort to reach every home, every resident to ensure there is clear understanding of the ramifications of Covid-19, spread prevention, and resources. Failure to make every effort possible to reach every resident is a significant and potentially fatal flaw in the management of city resources. We are currently experiencing a catastrophic event that is real-time changing and dictates an unknown future for our families, city, county, state, and nation as a whole. This is clearly demanding extreme coordinated efforts between agencies that have traditionally worked in isolation without any attempt to coordinate efforts and resources. The government agencies and elected officials include but not limited to: 1. Menlo Park Fire District (MPFD) 2. City of Menlo Park including police department (MPPD) 3. Town of Atherton including police department 4. City of East Palo Alto including police department 5. San Mateo County (SMC) including sheriff’s department 6. SMC Board of Supervisors Warren Slocum (President) and Don Horsley 7. California Senate Jerry Hill 8. California State Assembly Marc Berman 9. US Congress Representatives Jackie Speier and Anna Eshoo The city must recognize how we are bordered by neighboring cities, unincorporated areas of San Mateo County, and Santa Clara County (Palo Alto and Stanford). If it is now documented that “bending the curve” will reduce morbidity and ultimately mortality, then at a minimum there must be coordination of all information and finite resources. It should be noted that the Menlo Park Fire District (MPFD) serves all the San Mateo County cities and unincorporated, with the exception of Santa Clara County, areas listed below: 1. District 1 is connected to East Palo Alto. 2. District 2 is connected to Atherton, Menlo Oaks, North Fair Oaks, East Palo Alto, and Palo Alto. 3. District 3 is connected to Atherton, Menlo Oaks, and Palo Alto. 4. District 4 is connected to Atherton, West Menlo, and Stanford. 5. District 5 is connected to Atherton, West Menlo, and Stanford. Below are a few suggestions designed to move us forward: 1. Establish a coordinating team consisting of: a. Elected official from each city b. City and County Manager or representative c. President of MPFD Board or representative d. MPFD Chief or representative e. Law enforcement representative i. Menlo Park ii. Atherton iii. East Palo Alto iv. SMC Sheriff’s Department 2. Establish a team consisting of a Councilmember and one or two staff members to inform, monitor, and provide guidance to be included in each resource guide for each district. 3. MPPD, MPFD coordinate outreach utilizing their mapping tools to ensure every address receives consistent updates with targeted language translation. a. Maintain a resource guide for the public specific to each District. 4. Engage the Menlo Park Chamber of Commerce to support businesses. 5. Coordinate one website with links to all involved agencies including State and Federal website. 6. Utilize multiple forms of media for outreach. 7. Directly involve volunteer-outreach organizations such as CERT (FEMA Citizen Corps https://www.ready.gov/cert >) , MPC Ready (FEMA Citizen Corp https://www.ready.gov/citizen-corps >s) , and Council of Churches. OUR common ground is the identified risks, spread, and treatment resources, and unknown immunity levels (titer), and vaccine for COVID-19. OUR collective survival depends on the ability to work together as ONE. Respectfully, Pamela D. Jones, Menlo Park Resident The impossible dissipates when I becomes WE. -- The impossible dissipates when I becomes WE. application/pdf attachment: Coordinated_Efforts.pdf
